Sanctuary (1998)

Too much of everything

Purely Joyful Movie!

Crappy film

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Put simply, this is the most mediocre film I've had the opportunity to watch on DVD. The acting is mediocre, the special effects mediocre, the setting mediocre. For a change the storyline is not mediocre: it's worse than that.I'm quite sure that I would have done a better job myself with half the budget allocated to the film. The constant referring to flashbacks is good at the start but becomes annoying as the film drags along. Drags, because the story is so damn predictable that you're just waiting for it to end. There are a couple of humorous points ("Fuck yourself." "I can do that, too") but these only highlight how drab and uninspiring the rest of the script is. Dialogue is zero, acting on the same level. You neither care nor want to care about the main actor. Let this be over with, please.Special effects (usually a comeback for films like this) are hopeless too. Take the SWAT attack on the homeless community for example. How many of you have seen other film where SWAT members spend an inordinate amount of time posing with their guns but then fire blindly from the hip? The whole scene is directed so atrociously you never know hoe many people are actually there and where they really are. You realize the fight has ended when the truck blows up because... that's the way it is usually done. And I really really stood up laughing when the director shows us the main actor removing the tracking device from the pistol: a normal capacitor of the kind you can buy from every electronics shop.I will not pass comments on the ending of the film, because it's sheer, unadulterated senselessness (and mediocrity) left me breathless. I hope it was a twisted joke I failed to comprehend, and not an attempt at serious film-making.

I managed to catch "Sanctuary" on a night with nothing else to do but flip through the cable channels. I stumbled upon this film simply because i recognized Mark Dacascos from the "Crow: Stairway to Heaven" t.v. series. Needless to say I started watching and actually became somewhat enthralled by this film. The acting is above what i expected considering this is a straight to video movie. The action sequences were directed well, and the story had a surprising amount of depth to it. Not only the entire "conspiracy" like aspects of it, but also the struggle of a man who has chosen to turn away from all he had ever known to be. The flashback sequences were awesome, showing a disturbing yet intriguing look into a strange form of raising children. Ultimately, it was the closing shot of the film ( I won't give it away, but I must say that being Catholic made this especially cool) that just made me say "WOW." In summary, a surprisingly good late nite movie that is actually worth seeking out. The actors deliver well and the plot is enough to keep even the most easily distracted somewhat entertained.

SANCTUARY was Dacascos' first movie after the excellent DRIVE, I think, and it shows all the hallmarks of direct-to-video Hollywood junk on the surface. I really wasn't expecting much from it at all, but found myself pleasantly surprised. Mark plays a priest who has something of a dark past... in fact he was a CIA secret agent, trained from childhood to do the dirty off-the-book jobs for the agency without questioning. But he couldn't help questioning, and fled the agency after one particular job. He ended up becoming a priest in an attempt to atone for his past life. But his past life doesn't want to let him escape so easily. The plot sounds incredibly cheesy and free of subtlety, but the script and direction manage to flesh it out into something with a bit more subtlety. The movie splits its time between flashback to Mark's past and the hunt-chase after he is found doing his priestly work. Mark shows much better acting skills here than in Drive, perhaps because the movie is generally darker & serious in tone. He could have been more expressive and convincing, but I think he did a passable job. It's not really his acting that has got Mark noticed by the HK cinema crowd though, it's his extremely impressive martial arts skills, which are arguably the best of anybody working in movies anywhere in the world at this time (if we assume that Jackie/Jet/Biao etc are unlikely to ever match their early work again). Although there's a moderately high degree of action in the movie, there's not all that much acrobatics or hand to hand fighting required, so we don't get to see Mark's skills to anything like the extent that they're showcased in DRIVE. He still handles the action well though, and I really can't imagine how some reviewer came to the conclusion that he was "a poor man's Jean Claude Van Damme". The action scenes are better filmed than I expect from a Hollywood movie, and quite realistic - bullet impacts in particular are almost disturbingly convincing. It has to be noted that Mark gives up his priestly vows a little too easily, and could have been much less lethal at times than he habitually is. I guess it's just his training :D A less forgiving reviewer might dismiss it as the Hollywood b-grade movie it probably is in objective terms, but I found myself pleasantly surprised and am glad I bought the DVD, as I'll probably watch it again a couple of times. It's a shame the DVD distributors chose, in their infinite wisdom, to release it Pan & Scan though.

I turned to this movie late at night mainly to see Mark Dacascos who is nice to look at, and not a bad actor either! I tend to fall asleep if a movie doesn't keep me interested. Well, I felt that, for a cable action movie (on Action Max) it was entertaining and had an actual plot that made sense. In a series of flashbacks, we see the events that shaped Dacascos's character. It's got plenty of guns, a few explosions, a government conspiracy, bad guys, good guys, a possible good gal, and an ironic ending that is both unexpected and appropriate. This is a flick that both guys and gals can watch - lots of action but not any gore. I wish Dacascos luck in catching a mainstream movie and riding it to the big screen. He deserves it!